Japan-Bashing: Opium of the Chinese Masses

The Chinese government seems to have learnt too well that when all else fails, it can always lean on ultranationalism to divert the attention of the Chinese populace from more pressing concerns at home.

BEIJING, March 31 - A grass-roots Chinese campaign to keep Japan out of the United Nations Security Council has gathered some 22 million signatures, increasing the chances that China will block Japan's bid to join the elite group, organizers and analysts said Thursday.

The petition effort, conducted through popular Chinese Web sites, enjoys tacit support from the government, which has allowed state-controlled media to cover the campaign prominently.

As usual when it comes to relations between the two countries (or between Korea and Japan, for that matter), the Japanese show a level of decorum and restraint which only makes Chinese rabble-rousing seem all the more distasteful.

In Tokyo, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said, "The Chinese government has said the U.N. needs reform, so we believe that the Chinese and Japanese governments both have the same type of feeling and thinking on this issue."

"The petition itself is being conducted by private citizens and, according to press reports, the same petitioners' names keep appearing," the spokesman, Hatsuhisa Takashima, said. "So we just don't know how valid this petition effort is."

And now for the "Soot covered pot calling the slightly used kettle black" section of the article:

Chinese officials have not explicitly endorsed the petition, but they have offered supportive comments.

Liu Jianchao, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said this week that the effort reflected growing alarm about Japan's treatment of history.

"Japan has to take a responsible attitude toward history to build trust among the people of Asia, including China," he said.

How utterly laughable from a government which wouldn't even allow the death of one of its former top officials to be covered by the media, for fear of stirring up pro-democracy sentiments. China is in absolutely no position to be lecturing the Japanese on taking "a responsible attitude toward history", not in terms of honoring disreputable figures - Mao was worse than Tojo by far, yet is still revered as a "great leader" who made a few "mistakes" - nor in terms of teaching the true facts of history: just try looking for an honest account of the many failings of the Communist Party in Chinese textbooks, whether it be The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the annexation of Tibet or the crushing of the Tiananmen student revolt we're talking about.

I say it's well past time the Chinese and the Koreans got over their ritualistic Japan-bashing; yes, Japan did terrible things to both countries during its imperialist period, but Japan was not the only or even the most recent imperialist power to do such things, and most other victims have managed to get over their sufferings in the meantime. It isn't even true that Japan has failed to apologize for its past crimes either, so that bullshit excuse for whipping out the "Evil Japan" card won't wash. It seems to me at least that the only reason people in Korea and China are so free to indulge in Japan-bashing is that they're well aware that post-war Japan has indeed changed very much for the better, and most Japanese are so pacifistic that their government routinely plays down or ignores barbs from abroad a more assertive country's leaders would rebut forcefully. If Japan were as much of a bully as its economic might gives it the potential to be, the Chinese and Korean super-patriots would be a lot less vocal than they currrently are.

PS: An interesting article on OhMyNews which, despite its failings when it comes to analyzing Japan's political leadership (which is hardly "belligerent"), supports my assertion that most Japanese people are basically pacifistic and don't give a damn about the trivial issues which animate Chinese and Korean nationalist passions. It's funny that people take it as a sign of latent Japanese extremism whenever a few fringe uyoku nutcases drive their sound trucks around Tokyo, but when Korean lawmakers walk on Japanese flags and elderly Korean ladies chop their fingers off in protests over uninhabited islands, or when Chinese football fans attempt to lynch Japanese players, it's all written off as some innocuous bit of anger. In truth, if there is one country that I'm certain will not start a conflagaration in East Asia, that country is Japan.

Comments

[JuJuby]

Also, I find it amusing that people can claim that the migration of Han and Hui into the TAR is an attempt at genocide when Tibetans are not even subject to the one child rule as is with the Han. It would seem very difficult to commit genocide on a people by eliminating and replacing them with a dominant ethnic group when the minority group is given reproductive rights which allow it to increase its population relatively. The Tibetans will not disapear out of thin air. They are here in the millions.

I would say that it is obsurd and shows how blind people can be and unquestioning they are.

UNESCO does not recognize Tibetan culture or language as endangered or even potentially endangered for the fact that there is no systematic attempt by the Chinese government to eliminate it and the fact that there are literally millions of native Tibetan speakers who continually pass it down through the generations by parent to children and from the school systems.

If you want to know about real endangered languages, you can read up on the dozens of endangered languages in the USA andangered partly due to real genocide.

http://www.ethnologue.com/nearly_extinct.asp#The+Americas

[Randy McDonald]

With respect, if Tibetans are allowed to reproduce their population and experience (over a generation's time) 50% growth, while the Han Chinese who outnumber them 200-to-1 are allowed to flood into an underdeveloped Tibet and multiply their population several times over, the culture is still swamped. Witness the Uighur in Xinjiang.

[JuJuby]

>>With respect, if Tibetans are allowed to reproduce their population and experience (over a generation's time) 50% growth, while the Han Chinese who outnumber them 200-to-1 are allowed to flood into an underdeveloped Tibet and multiply their population several times over, the culture is still swamped. Witness the Uighur in Xinjiang.

^^^Non sequitur and strawman.

[Jim]

"UNESCO does not recognize Tibetan culture or language "
Now there's an incorruptible source, some bought-bitch of a UN agency. No truckling to the Chinese in the UN, is there?

[Jim]

If you want to know about real endangered languages, you can read up on the dozens of endangered languages in the USA andangered partly due to real genocide.

http://www.ethnologue.com/nearly_extinct.asp#The+Americas

This is a valid point. Some languages have survived despite huge losses of population, like Lakota, some haved thrived, like Navajo - neither of them the most perfect example of a genocide, but close enough.

Huron and Susquehannock are dead as dead can be, naturally, and due to genocide, sure enough, probably the most single-minded and intentional of all these genocides. Care to tell us who carried these out?

But whatever, langugae death is not the criterion of what is or isn't a genocide. hebrew and Yiddish are still fairly vibrant.

[JuJuby]

>>"UNESCO does not recognize Tibetan culture or language "
Now there's an incorruptible source, some bought-bitch of a UN agency. No truckling to the Chinese in the UN, is there?

Are you suggesting theat Tibetan is a endangered language and culture? If so then you must be using your own critieria because linguists have a set of critieria used to identify what languages should be considered endangered or threatened. It may not be perfect but it is scientific and unbiased unlike sources from the mindless group of "Free Tibet" losers who's claims are completely risible.

[Chuckles]

But seriously, if Korea is anything to go by, increased Freedom, Prosperity and Civil Liberties might just *heighten* the Japan bashing in China.

S. Korea is not exactly your commie type repressive regime, but the animosity Koreans demonstrate toward Japan might just was well trump anything the Chinese have to bring forward.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050405/lf_afp/japanhistoryeducation_050405154657

I have had Korean friends speak of their grudge toward the Japanese, even though many of them were born just 20 to 30 years ago. There are psychological angles to this and Japan bashing might just be a way to reconcile envy, respect and a profound sense of defeat.

Which of course leads me to ask - Why then arent any of the SE Asian countries who were victims of Japanese Imperialism as well, expressing vitriol this copious?

An interesting state of affairs this is.

[Jim]

Chuckles,

You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the motivating force of envy. It is bad enough for China to have been bested by Europeans, who had at least invented and developed all their technical advantages. It was just too humiliating to see the Japanese pull ahead too. That is unforgivable.

Speaking of the Koreans in the context of China's kland grab in Tibet, did you see recently the furor over China attempting to label the Koguryo Kingdom Chinese? The Koreans went ballistic, and pointed out that it was not a matter of antiquarian interest,. They specifically pointed ot China's use of treaties with Tibet re-interpreted to support Chinese hegemony as an example of the dire consequences of letting these claims go unchallenged.

And it may disgust but will not surprise you to know that Korean animosity towards individual Japanese and Japanese-Americans is alive and well in America.

[Jim]

Jujuby,

Now we agree on something. I agree with your sentiment about the Free Tibet losers. Tibetan is hardly endangered. That is true. It is also irrelevant to the question of geneocide except where it is one more indicator, but still true.

The standard criteria have to do with the standard age of speakers and total numbers of speakers, the degree to which some other language is usurping various social domains and so on. i am sure some of that is happening in Tibetan, but certainly no tin the diaspora.

Back to the sick obsession with Japan. I just think they could stand to pull the log out their own eye first.

[captainblak]

I've heard the Dalai Lama actually endorse and comment the development that China has brought to Tibet.
The obsession over Tibet seems to be a Western pre-occupation.

[Randy McDonald]

Non sequitur and strawman.

Sorry?

I wasn't talking about the genocide following the 1959 installation of direct rule, if that's what you mean. Can you be specific?

[JuJuby]

>>You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the motivating force of envy. It is bad enough for China to have been bested by Europeans, who had at least invented and developed all their technical advantages. It was just too humiliating to see the Japanese pull ahead too. That is unforgivable.

This claim is about as stupid as the one for genocide. But I can now see a patern.

>>Speaking of the Koreans in the context of China's kland grab in Tibet, did you see recently the furor over China attempting to label the Koguryo Kingdom Chinese?

How would you define Chinese? Han only? Luckly for Chinese, they don't see everything through racialist eyes.

[JuJuby]

Andrew and Jim,

I would also add that if you look at the most common usage of the term genocide, it is almost exclusively used to refer to the destruction of a group of people. The "Free Tibet" types and others who constantly spew their regurgitated propaganda usually use it as such without any qualifiers or modifiers or adjectives such as "cultural". They simply say "genocide" even when there has never been any evidence to suggest it.

Now, look at the webster dictionary definition of "genocide." It gives only one. The widely used meaning.

http://webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=genocide

"Main Entry: geno·cide
Pronunciation: 'je-n&-"sId
Function: noun
: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group
- geno·cid·al /"je-n&-'sI-d&l/ adjective "

It clearly states that only the "systematic" destruction of a group of people count as a "genocide".

If you want to use "genocide" in a very narrow and recherche way, it is reasonable that you would explain what you mean by it and that it is (in this case) a metaphorical usage. This is crucial in such a loaded word in using it to accuse a nation of such an act.

Even if you replaced the word "group" in the above dictionary definition with "cultural practises" or "cultural artifacts" you would still be stretching the meaning as it can be argued that it was not "systematic" destruction and that it was not one culture replacing another but rather a loss of cultures at all levels of a country.

[Brad]

People who breed hatred suck.

[Brad]

Why do Chinese people always think they're so right, and when anybody points anything to the contrary, they always have to make excuses about the issue, or compare the argument with something else.

Japan wasn't the only foreign power who caused mayhem and destruction to the Chinese. Remember the Mongols? They actually ruled China for a bit, but their initial destruction was catastrophic. Throughout history, different cultures have exhibited extreme violence towards their perceived enemy, and whether the governments apologized or not, it is up to the people to make the actual change in attitude. Look at Germany, they apologized for their actions during WWII, have museums, memorials, but yet there is a large anti-semitic/racist movement. There is nothing like that in Japan. Whether the history books state it or not, most people know what happened in WWII, and have deep regrets. Especially towards the CHinese.
So why don't people just move past the crap and just get along with one another!!!